'Beijing would allow watered-down extradition law'

National People’s Congress Standing Committee member Tam Yiu-chung said on Wednesday that he believes the central government does not have a strong view on whether white-collar crimes should be covered under proposed changes to the SAR's extradition laws.

The legal amendments planned would allow the government to arrange one-off extradition deals with places Hong Kong doesn't have a formal treaty with.

But local business leaders are calling on the administration to leave out economic offences, over fears executives could find themselves surrendered to mainland authorities.

Tam said past experience shows that Beijing is willing to listen to Hong Kong people’s views, citing recent decisions on income tax and foreign investment as examples.

Therefore, he said, if there are a lot of concerns about economic offences being included under the planned law changes, it would not be "a big deal” for the SAR government to “slightly narrow” the scope of the amendments.